Andrew Manze, Music Director, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover Ralph Vaughan Williams – Symphony No. 5; Ralph Vaughan Williams (Conductor), London Philharmonic Orchestra A pacifist and humanist, Vaughan Williams completed his Fifth Symphony during the darkest days of the World War II. It was premiered in London in 1943 and is an unambiguous expression of hope and […]
Category: Playlist
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A #HearAllComposers Playlist
On March 21, musicians and music lovers who desired more diverse orchestral programming took to Twitter with the hashtag #HearAllComposers, to encourage symphony orchestras to program music by non-male and non-white composers. The hashtag came largely from the efforts of Emma O’Halloran, Annika Socolofsky, Amanda Feery, and Finola Merivale, all young composers frustrated with the […]
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An Arthur Kampela Playlist
At this year’s MaerzMusik festival in Berlin, Arthur Kampela will present his research on Walter Smetak, an obscure Brazilian composer and inventor of instruments. Smetak is one artist featured in this playlist of radical, searching music by Kampela, himself a Brazilian composer and guitarist currently living in New York. These are intense sounds—our recommendation is […]
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A Pamela Z Playlist
The composer, performer, and media artist Pamela Z works with a wide variety of techniques, including “voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video,” and has produced art both for the concert hall and the museum. From San Francisco, she sent us this playlist. Each track here contains a multiplicity of influences; taken together, the […]
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A Barrie Kosky Playlist
Often, music from childhood and youth doesn’t merely bring back memories of those times: it evokes real, physical sensations like adrenaline, sweat, and heartbreak. For this playlist, Barrie Kosky, the Artistic Director of the Komische Oper Berlin, mined his experiences as a gay kid growing up in Australia and the influence of his grandmother. His […]
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A Víkingur Ólafsson Playlist
Backstage at the Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavik, a mens’ choir is rehearsing. It’s their 100th anniversary, and a group of craggy old men in suits are talking to Víkingur Ólafsson like he’s a favored son-in-law, back for one of his many regular visits.Ólafsson has a lot on his plate right now. Last week, he […]
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A Bang on a Can All-Stars Playlist
One way the Bang on a Can All-Stars describe themselves is as “a genre in their own right.” On their upcoming European tour, with performances at the Kampnagel in Hamburg (November 18), Les Halles de Schaerbeek in Brussels (November 19), and Villa Musica in Mainz (November 20-21), their programs confirm this, reading more like new […]
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A Losing Presidential Candidates Playlist
Yesterday, the BBC posted a surprisingly tame piece with Donald Trump’s thoughts on music; in it was an admiring reference to Steve Reich’s phase technique. (I first found out about it through a tweet by William Robin.) As others have pointed out, Trump himself probably didn’t write those lines. But it got me wondering. The […]
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A Hannu Lintu Playlist
Einojuhani Rautavaara “mastered almost every compositional style of the 20th century,” the Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu writes. Perhaps for that reason, he is often grouped with other European mavericks outside the serialist tradition, such as Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki. He is also an indispensable figure in Finnish music history. In October, Lintu will be […]
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A Pekka Kuusisto Playlist
“Hi VANdals,” Pekka Kuusisto writes to us in the email with this playlist. The Finnish violinist, experimenter, and artistic director of the Meidän Festivaali (“Our Festival”) in Järvenpää, will visit his home country on tour with the Minnesota Orchestra this August, playing Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto; in September, he’ll be traveling to Germany with Ligeti’s Concerto, […]